European strategists often view a postwar Ukraine through the prism of conventional risk: a heavily armed, battle-hardened state carrying unresolved territorial grievances. That framing misses the real source of Ukrainian power. The leverage Kyiv will wield is not military but moral—and it comes from memory.

Even before the war ends, Europe is revealing how it behaves when Ukraine’s interests clash with its own. Hungary has obstructed Ukraine’s EU accession talks, leveraging Kyiv’s vulnerability to pursue its quarrels with Brussels. These vetoes have nothing to do with the front lines and everything to do with domestic EU politics. For Ukraine, the lesson is vivid: even a nonbelligerent state can use institutional rules to delay or dilute its European path. A single member can turn enlargement into........

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